


What The Night Holds

by Gabe (gabrielhugh)



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017)
Genre: Angst, Elio suffers with nightmares, Fluff, M/M, Some Descriptions of Violence, and Oliver looks after him, kinda Evil!Oliver but he's only in a dream, protective!oliver, this is super short I just wanted to post something so I wrote this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 22:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15567777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabrielhugh/pseuds/Gabe
Summary: Elio has suffered his whole life from nightmares. They constantly change to fit with the student his father is hosting at the time. Oliver brings with him a whole new load of nightmares, but also a whole new load of affection.Just a super quick ficlet.





	What The Night Holds

Elio had suffered from nightmares for as long as he could remember. When he was a younger child there were vivid dragons burning down the houses of his family, leaving nobody but him to clean up the messes that they left behind. As he grew up, they began to focus on his studies. He would have nightmares of all of his work amounting to nothing or showing up to class having forgotten his clothes. On worse nights he would dream about his own death. It always confused him, because he was sure that dying in your dream meant dying in reality and yet he always woke, gasping for breath and sometimes sweating having been shot through the chest moments before. Nothing he tried was successful in stopping them and sometimes the “cures” only made everything worse. The best only made them somehow fuzzier, but still unmistakably there.

When summer came around, Elio always offered to give up his own room, because it was difficult to hear anything happening outside the room from inside the room, but easy to hear what was happening inside the room from outside. This meant that if he was thrashing about in the middle of the night or if he woke up screaming, he would not disturb the guests, but if the guest needed assistance, they could shout and would be heard. Despite it being his idea, he somehow still resented that he was forced to give up his own space for the summer because of something he had no control over. Nevertheless, he knew it was the best idea and that his father may not get many more graduate students taking up his placement if he was to ruin their stay for them.

Often, his nightmares would adjust with the person that was staying. If he could not get along with them at all, he may dream that the student trapped Elio in an endless maze of his worst fears. If he did not understand them, he may dream that the student was actually a monster in disguise, only really visiting to ensure the downfall of the entire country. Oliver came with an entirely new set of nightmares. It was clear that his main fear was losing those around him and not being able to do anything about it, but the nightmares about Oliver were directed at Elio himself. He would thrash around to the image of Oliver admitting that he hated him or turning out to have never been there all along, just a figment of Oliver’s imagination leading to absolute public humiliation.

The first night Elio and Oliver spent together, Elio did not sleep. He lay on Oliver’s chest as still as he could possibly be, waiting for the older man to drift off before he began quietly talking to himself in an attempt to keep himself awake. Once the night was completely dark save for the specks of light that the stars offered, Elio slipped away to spend some time outside. In the fresh air, he let his thoughts roam free. He wondered why he had to be plagued with these nightmares and if they would ever stop. He wondered if this would mean he was alone forever, destined to never marry.

The sun beginning to rise again gave him his cue to go back to Oliver. He was so tired he was not sure he could make it to the room without collapsing, but he kept reminding himself that Oliver would be expecting him there when he woke, and he did not want to let him down. He did not want his nightmares to become a reality. As quietly as he could, he crept back into the room and found Oliver in exactly the same position he had left him in. Elio put on a jumper so that the coolness of his body would not startle Oliver and lay back down beside him. A few more hours of Elio alone with his thoughts passed before Oliver woke.

“Morning.” His voice was raspy and muffled by the sound of the pillow he continued to bury his face in. Elio smiled at the first sound of peace he had heard since Oliver had fallen asleep hours ago and reached out his hand, running it through the man’s messy hair. Although his face was partly hidden, Elio could still sense the smile that played out on Oliver’s face as he tried to lean into the hand. After a few moments, Oliver turned to look at the younger boy.

“Did you sleep OK?” Elio asked, smiling as genuinely as he could manage without closing his eyes too much and drifting off.

“Hmm yeah. Did you sleep at all?” Oliver was looking at him with concern in his eyes. “You have the biggest dark circles I’ve ever seen, and you look like you’re about to pass out on me.” He was sat up now, towering above Elio as he usually did.

Knowing he could not get away with anything else, Elio admitted that he had not been able to sleep. Oliver gently put his hand on Elio’s cheek, encouraging him to lay down properly. “Please try and get a few hours for me?” He spoke softly and with genuine concern, making Elio’s heart melt for a moment. The contact made him feel as though he was falling into Oliver and no matter how hard Elio yelled at himself to keep his eyes open, his head hit the pillow and he was asleep before Oliver had the chance to ask if he was OK again.

He dreamt that Oliver was a spy. He had been lying about his identity since he got here and was only using his family to get information about the views of Italian people about their government. Oliver was reporting everything he knew back to America and, once he had relayed all of the relevant information, he was given strict orders to kill the Perlmans. Oliver had no qualms about doing so and swiftly took a gun to each member of Elio’s family one by one until Elio was the only one left. Oliver grinned evilly, cocking his head to the side as he pressed the barrel of the gun against Elio’s head. “Did you really think I ever cared about you?”

Before Elio was killed, he was shaken awake. Oliver was on the bed next to him, his hand wrapped around Elio’s arm in an attempt to bring him back to reality. As soon as he noticed Elio was awake, he pulled him to his chest and held him tight enough to stop the shaking that was taking over his entire body. “Hey hey hey,” he spoke in a soft voice, the rhythm of his words matching the rhythm of his swaying. “You don’t have to be scared any more it’s OK.” Elio was crying now, tears dampening Oliver’s T-shirt, but he could not care. His heart broke to see the boy so distraught. “Nothing will hurt you, Elio, it wasn’t real.”

Elio pulled back from the hug, looking into Oliver’s eyes and searching for some sign of deceit. He pushed his finger against Oliver’s chest, not quite sure why but looking for some kind of authority. “Is this real?” Elio did not know why he said it or what he meant by it, but he needed some reassurance. Oliver searched for meaning in Elio’s eyes but found only fear.

“Everything I feel for you in painfully real, Elio.” Somehow, they both knew that this was what he had been asking about. Elio sunk back into Oliver’s chest again, being gently rocked backwards and forwards until his breathing could completely calm down. Elio’s fingers played the piano on Oliver’s back, matching the tempo of his heartbeat.

Elio was thankful when Oliver did not ask what his nightmare was about, but he was terrified for the future of their relationship when Oliver insisted Elio continued to sleep in his bed to help with the nightmares. 


End file.
